Jennifer Homendy

Homendy said they also have information on tower staffing at the time, but will not guess this early on a cause.

She did share that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are in Washington and are being processed.

We have not had a full day of investigation here today.

And I think that's important because there are a lot of questions, and I understand there are a lot of questions.

I've heard them.

The chair of the NTSB, Jennifer Homendy, said the FAA should have known that there was a conflict between this helicopter route along the Potomac River and the approach to Runway 33 at the DCA airport, where the American Airlines regional jet flying from Kansas was trying to land.

Homendy says those two flight paths were separated by less than 100 feet.

After a year-long investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board released its findings about the collision of an Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet that killed 67 people.

And investigators laid much of the blame on the Federal Aviation Administration.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy says the FAA should have known that there was a conflict between the helicopter route and the approach to Runway 33 at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.

The FAA says it has already adopted the NTSB's safety recommendations from last year and will consider its new recommendations as well.

Joel Rose, NPR News, Washington.

We should be angry because for years no one listened.

This was preventable.

This was 100 percent preventable.

This is just the first step.

It is our duty to relentlessly...

vigorously pursue safety change, which means we must do everything in our power to get our recommendations implemented, or this will happen again.

In an unusual rebuke, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy raised major concerns about a provision in the defense policy bill now before Congress.

Homendy said the provision would roll back safety improvements that were recommended by the NTSB after the collision of a military Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Washington, D.C.